上世紀三四十年代，由於戰火而南遷香港的徐遲（1914-1996），完成了他從「現代派」走向「大眾化」的文學旅程。他在1939 年發表的〈抒情的放逐〉一文正是這個轉變過程的一個重要標記。文章刊出後，招致陳殘雲（1914-2002）、胡風（1902-1985）等人的批評，他們分歧的核心在於對「抒情」概念的界定與理解。徐遲理解的「抒情」是小我的、由山水自然生發的，故而提出：在戰爭當前要「放逐抒情」；而陳殘雲與胡風理解的「抒情」偏重「時代性」與「功利性」，胡風還強調個人主觀精神活動的重要性。徐遲對現代主義詩學的認識主要源自艾略特以及英國三十年代詩人如台劉易士等的論述；而後者的論述本來就包含文學如何與政治磨合的問題。徐遲的詩學思想在轉向後，仍遺留不少現代主義的痕跡，大概與此相關，其表現可以他在1942 年發表的〈圓寶盒的神話〉為例。文章以卞之琳《慰勞信集》為討論中心，其論點正好與穆旦（1918-1977）及陳世驤（1912-1971）的卞之琳評論並觀，以見「抒情」在「戰爭詩學」中的意義。

The modern poet Xu Chi (1914-1996) fled to Hong Kong in the late 1930s because of the Sino-Japanese War. In the 30s and 40s, he transformed himself from an elitist Modernist intellectual into a follower of Communism. In 1939, he published “Lyricism in Exile,” an essay severely criticized by Chen Canyun (1914-2002), Hu Feng (1902-1985) and others. This negative reception is attributable to the vast gulf between Xu’s understanding of “lyricism” and that of his critics. To Xu, lyricism connoted the ego; it stressed interiority and spontaneity and had little to do with the social environment. Chen Canyun and Hu Feng, on the other hand, held that “lyricism” in no way contradicted poetry’s social value and its function of reflecting the times. Xu’s interpretation of modern poetics was primarily based on his study of T. S. Eliot, C. Day-Lewis and other English poets of the 1930s. Xu was a poet-critic who deeply meditated on the nature of poetry, and he tried to respond to the challenges of his time by incorporating Modernist artistic concepts into his “wartime poetics”. Xu’s position is well exemplified by his reading of Bian Zhilin’s poetic collection, Letters of Consolation, especially when juxtaposed and compared with Mu Dan’s (1918-1977) and Chen Shixiang’s (1912-1971) criticism of Bian.